Reconstructing post-crisis recovery in the hinterlands of Constantinople: A high-resolution first-millennium CE pollen record from Lake Yeniçağa (NW Türkiye)

Abstract

Facing a novel plague pandemic, military invasions, and political–economic transformations, societies of the eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire had to adapt to a variety of pressures and new ways of exploiting their natural environments during the mid-1^st millennium CE. As a result, the rural economy of Anatolia transitioned from the intensive mixed-farming regime of the Graeco-Roman era to a more varied medieval agricultural system. We reconstruct here for the first time this transition in a region of Anatolia located close to Constantinople through pollen analysis of a sediment core from Lake Yeniçağa, dated to between ~2300 and ~1200 cal a BP. After discussing data for the Hellenistic–Roman era, we document repeated attempts at the recovery of mixed farming during the 6^th to 8^th c. CE. These attempts were only successful toward the end of our study period, with the stabilization of the military situation in the region, as is also visible in the written sources that we analyze in parallel in this paper. Crucially, this model of land exploitation was also constrained by the climatic oscillations that reflected its transitional location between the Aegean, Central Anatolian, and Black Sea climate regions. Thus, our study provides a perfect illustration of the interplay between environment and society in relation to the primary production sector (agriculture), in the dynamic context of a strong elite presence in the nearby capital city.